The chief executive of the Royal Agricultural Society of England is to retire after this year's Royal Show.

Mike Calvert, who has been head of RASE for five years and helped plan the transformation of Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire into a centre of rural excellence, will step down in July.

Society chairman Ian Mac-Nicol said: "He has been instrumental in making sure the society has faced the challenges of change, and has steered us through changes of our own including the very exciting partnership with the Royal Smithfield Club.

"His legacy to RASE and British agriculture will be the transformation of Stoneleigh Park, the home of the society, into an international centre of rural excellence."